Google’s Algorithm and Its Major Updates

Going by the stats of Wikipedia Google was launched 21years ago in the year 1997 and today it’s the most used Search Engine across the globe with more than 4.5 billion monthly active users. Alexa ranking has ranked Google as the number 1 search engine. At present Google is available in 149 languages and it handles more than 3 billion searches per day.

What is Google Algorithm

A formula that has been designed by Google to rank the websites on the basis of their relevance and present them to a user based on their queries is termed as Google Algorithm. There is an amalgamation of numerous algorithms and ranking patterns on the basis of which the websites are ranked by a search engine. In its initial phase there were very few changes that were introduced by Google for the betterment of the websites but now there are enormous updates that Google comes up with, in a year and most of the websites are not aware of all of them.

At times Google comes up with major algorithm updates which consequently effect the websites and their rankings over the SERP (search engine result page). Google introduces new updates seeing the changes in the consumers behavior every now and then. The constant updation not only helps the websites but it helps Google too to be on the top. If a website wants to be on the SERP of Google its mandatory for them to closely follow the Google Algorithms and updates.

Major Google Updates:

To name a few of the major changes introduced by Google:

Google Panda Update:

Google first introduced this update in Feb’11 wherein it stated that all the websites with quality content should be rewarded as against the websites with low quality content. Earlier websites used to stuff a lot of keywords in their content even if the content was short. Google wanted websites to avoid duplicacy, refurbishing and meaningless but only keyword stuffed content. With the introduction of Google Panda websites were made aware of the necessity of meaningful content.

Google Penguin Update:

This update was introduced in April’12 and through this update Google stopped giving relevance to the websites that built unnatural links and stuffed keywords to gain a rank on the SERP. Many websites concentrated on building continuous links by connecting with low quality sites or by paying for the links. Google stopped all of that with its Penguin Update and penalized websites that indulged in such practices by dropping its rank.

Google Hummingbird Update:

This update was introduced in April’13 and with this update it became easier for Google to identify the need of the consumers queries and display the websites that would be the most pertinent answer to their queries. Google prefers websites which put up content that answers the problems of the consumers and not just concentrate on stuffing their keywords.

Mobile Friendly Update:

This update that was introduced in April’15 rewarded the mobile friendly websites with better search rankings as it wants to give better results to the users over the mobile devices. Google wants all the websites to have mobile friendly pages only.